


When Diplomacy Fails, Try Pharmaceuticals

by Dustbunnygirl



Series: Revenge Series [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-23
Updated: 2008-05-23
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:07:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8007373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbunnygirl/pseuds/Dustbunnygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title:When Diplomacy Fails, Try Pharmaceuticals, sequel to A Dish Best Served <s>Naked</s> Cold<br/>Prompt:8 of 10, starry heavens (yeah, this one’s most likely gonna be a stretch too, y’all. Blink and you might miss it), "the 10s" challenge.<br/>Fandom: Torchwood<br/>Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Team, Myfanwy.<br/>Rating: R. Mentions of the sexing but nothing overly graphic. Mentions of very brief character death (it’s okay, Jack gets better). Undue violence against a perfectly innocent coffee machine. Bad language (but with Owen around, that’s expected).<br/>Word count: 5,585<br/>Warnings: No spoilers this time, I don’t think. <br/>Disclaimer: I own nothing. I’ve borrowed my toys from Auntie Beeb and Uncle Rusty’s toy box and fully plan on eventually giving them back someday. Maybe. If I don’t decide to keep them and hug them and squeeze them and call them George. <br/>Summary: Jack and Ianto take getting even a little too far, causing the team to dole out a bit of payback all their own.</p>
    </blockquote>





	When Diplomacy Fails, Try Pharmaceuticals

**Author's Note:**

> Title:When Diplomacy Fails, Try Pharmaceuticals, sequel to A Dish Best Served ~~Naked~~ Cold  
>  Prompt:8 of 10, starry heavens (yeah, this one’s most likely gonna be a stretch too, y’all. Blink and you might miss it), "the 10s" challenge.  
> Fandom: Torchwood  
> Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Team, Myfanwy.  
> Rating: R. Mentions of the sexing but nothing overly graphic. Mentions of very brief character death (it’s okay, Jack gets better). Undue violence against a perfectly innocent coffee machine. Bad language (but with Owen around, that’s expected).  
> Word count: 5,585  
> Warnings: No spoilers this time, I don’t think.   
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. I’ve borrowed my toys from Auntie Beeb and Uncle Rusty’s toy box and fully plan on eventually giving them back someday. Maybe. If I don’t decide to keep them and hug them and squeeze them and call them George.   
> Summary: Jack and Ianto take getting even a little too far, causing the team to dole out a bit of payback all their own.

When it started, it was funny. Nobody, not even Owen – who still claimed he’d suffered irreparable mental trauma at the hands of Ianto’s…well, hand – could deny the inherent entertainment the situation provided. Everyone laughed at the golden oldies that popped up around the Hub: the Whoopee Cushions in the chairs, the spring-loaded peanut brittle containers in the lounge, the ink-juiced chewing gum and mousetraps left in coat pockets. Gwen, Tosh, and Owen placed bets on who would lower their standards first and resort to plastic vomit on the stairs or rubber pterodactyl poo on the desktops. 

What they should’ve wagered on was who would up the ante first, instead.

They still laughed – maybe not as loudly - when Ianto wired the industrial-strength joy buzzer into Jack’s chair in the boardroom. Ianto hadn’t meant to tweak the settings quite so high, but in his defense, the instructions were in Swedish and he wasn’t exactly fluent. Jack was only dead for a second, really, hardly long enough for it to count as being properly dead by Jack standards. And the coffee Owen got splattered with when the Captain went into convulsions was a good half an hour old, so it’s not as if he got burned or anything. 

The holographic spiders Jack left on Ianto’s desk in the tourist office earned a chuckle or two from the team too. Well, save Tosh. Ianto’s attempt at smashing every single one of the eight-legged menaces with his shoe ended with him also smashing the holographic projector – a brilliant piece of Rift debris (from the 33rd Century, according to Jack) that they’d only had a week and that Tosh hadn’t even gotten a chance to play with yet, thank you very much! By the time Ianto was done, the two dozen smoking bits left behind only resembled a holographic projector in the same way a pile of broken concrete and twisted steel resembled a skyscraper, but even less recognizably. At least he’d stopped before he managed to do the same to his keyboard. Or monitor. Or mouse.

The final straw came a week later. It had been a hard weekend: their pre-arranged, “the world’s not ending this week so we can relax” time off had been interrupted by a mob of Weevils interrupting a concert at the Millennium Center Saturday night and a caravan of curious intergalactic tourists hovering over an outdoor wedding reception Sunday afternoon. None of them could remember the last time they’d had a weekend – two complete days, back to back – to themselves and the fact a planned one had managed to deconstruct on them had everyone raw and out of sorts, even Jack. He’d had every intent of calling a halt to his and Ianto’s merry war, if only to insure nothing else in the office got damaged – himself included. Plans had involved holding truce negotiations at a quiet bed and breakfast fifteen minutes outside Cardiff and a heartfelt apology delivered between bouts of hot, conciliatory sex. They’d been packed and on their way out the door when the Rift monitor started blaring. 

Jack sat in his office, staring at the empty coat rack across from him and brooding. Sunday’s “Close Encounter” moment had gone down without violence or bloodshed (but plenty of Retcon), but Saturday’s Weevil party hadn’t been so peaceful. They’d managed to limit the civilian fatalities to one – a blowhard of a conductor the visiting orchestra didn’t seem too sad to lose – but Jack and his coat hadn’t been so lucky. It was funny to think that, once upon a time, he’d been worried moths would be its undoing. Now it was more likely to be Weevils. 

Jack sometimes wondered how much longer they would be able to repair the greatcoat. It was probably safe to say there was more patching than actual coat left anymore, more carefully threaded repair stitching than wool. One day he knew he’d go to pull it on and one string would catch on a fingernail or his watch and unravel the whole thing. And all that would be left besides a pile of blue stitching would be the bars at his shoulders and a handful of brass buttons. 

Sometimes Jack wondered how Ianto managed to keep bringing it back to him in one piece, no matter what damage it suffered. Had to be more than just the keen eye of a master tailor’s son and a fine hand with a needle, but short of purloined alien technology Jack couldn’t come up with a viable alternate theory.

Perhaps predictably, thoughts of Ianto and the coat brought to mind vivid snapshots of Jack’s wicked Welshman sitting in that very chair, feet propped on that very desk, wrapped up in that very missing and being-mended coat. The Captain hadn’t expected the show he got, hadn’t expected to be sitting in a cold, damp corridor watching grainy CCTV footage and palming his cock through his trousers while his lover pleasured himself through a fistful of antique wool. Owen was just supposed to catch Ianto unawares and undressed, not mid stroke. That had never been the plan. If he’d known how fond Ianto was of the coat, he would have put together a completely different plan (and saved the coat plan for a time he could be there in person to appreciate the view). 

The replay, unbidden though it was, chased the dour frown from Jack’s lips and had him reaching down to lessen the pressure constricting his erection. He was about to IM Ianto and see if they could have an abbreviated version of the peace talks over lunch when a shriek from beyond his door caught his attention.

“Myfanwy, no!” Gwen was screaming from the lounge, staring up at the ceiling and, assumedly, the pterodactyl in question. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you…oh, how did she even get a claw on it?”

“I don’t know,” Tosh said from beside her, staring upward in a similarly panicked fashion, “but we’ve got to get it away from her before Jack – “

“Before Jack what?” Jack stopped beside the pair, staring upward and squinting to see what the fuss was about. 

“Nothing!” the women shouted in unison. Gwen landed both her hands in the middle of Jack’s chest and tried to shove him backwards, presumably back to his office, while Tosh sent scolding looks at the office pet.

“Right. Nothing always ends in shrieking and finger-shaking around here.” Jack reached for Gwen’s wrists and pulled them aside before turning his attention toward the ceiling again. “Now what’s the old girl done now that’s got everybody so…agitated?”

That’s when he saw it. Peeking out of the far corner of the ceiling space Myfanwy used as a nest was a piece of familiar navy blue wool. The edge that could be seen of it, what wasn’t buried and twisted up in the rest of the intricate bedding the dinosaur made for itself, was roughly torn and ragged, as if it had been ripped away with sharp claws or a beak. As he looked closer, Jack could see that it wasn’t the only bit of the fabric the pterodactyl had. There was another segment of it caught in her beak, just waiting to be weaved in with the rest. Jack felt the blood pounding in his head, the heat of anger burning in his face as his hands fisted at his side. 

“I’m going to kill her,” he growled out between clenched teeth before he turned on his heel and made a dash for his office. For his holster. For his gun.

“Jack, you can’t!” Gwen cried as she followed after him, frantic looks tossed over her shoulder to a still and shocked Tosh. “You can’t shoot her over a coat!”

“Like hell I can’t.” He was at the door, through it, intent on his desk and the drawer within it where he kept the Webley and its ammunition. “I’d shoot you over that coat.”

“Jack!”

“Any of you,” Jack clarified as he fumbled with the box of ammunition, hands shaking with rage. “It’s stuck by me longer than anything or anyone. S’almost like ripping apart a piece of me.” 

“Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe Ianto can still fix it. Maybe – “

The old revolver’s wheel, fully loaded, clicked back into place with a smack of Jack’s hand. His eyes were narrowed, icy slits as he pushed past Gwen on the way out his door. “Maybe we’ll find out if pterodactyl is really a delicacy somewhere,” he said over his shoulder.

Owen had joined Tosh on the walkway when Jack, with Gwen trailing after him, emerged from the office. Myfanwy, unaware of the fate awaiting her, continued prodding the wool into place with the tip of her beak.

“C’mon, Jack, you’re not thinking clearly,” Owen said. Jack leveled the revolver’s barrel at Owen, finger clenched around the trigger, and the doctor raised his hands in surrender and stepped back. “Fine. Commit pterodactyl-cide. But I’m not fitting her in the deep freeze, no matter what you say.”

Jack didn’t say anything. Instead, he pointed the business end of the Webley at the nesting dinosaur and slowly squeezed the trigger. The second before the gun’s report blared through the Hub, something barreled into Jack’s right side, knocking him off his feet and onto the catwalk. The bullet went wild, glancing off the fountain before embedding itself in the couch. Owen, Tosh, and Gwen hit the ground as Jack tumbled. When the dust settled, Jack found himself pinned to the scaffolding by Ianto, who had both hands wrapped around the wrist of his gun hand.

“Ten seconds,” Jack said. Ianto blinked, comprehension falling short. “Ten seconds to tell me what the hell you think you were doing. And now it’s nine seconds.”

“You can’t shoot Myfanwy,” Ianto said, not budging an inch.

“Eight.”

“She didn’t take your coat.”

“Seven.”

“Jack, are you listening? That’s not your coat. It’s patch fabric, that’s all. Scraps. Coat’s upstairs, all in one piece. Perfectly fine. I just gave her a few scraps, just to have a laugh.”

Jack wasn’t counting anymore, wasn’t saying anything at all. It was like someone had found the switch inside his head and set it to pause, freezing the furious look and boiling rage in place. The next six seconds ticked on in silence, everyone waiting, nobody breathing, the only sound the oblivious scratching of the pterodactyl overhead.

Ianto broke the silence first. “See?” he said, forcing half of his mouth into a nervous grin. “You can’t shoot her. She didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Jack was silent and still for another heartbeat before he nodded. Ianto released the Captain’s hand and slid off him, Gwen offering down a hand to help him to his feet. Jack shrugged off Owen’s offer of the same assistance and pushed himself up slowly, the Webley still ominous and threatening in his grip.

“No, you’re right,” he said, staring at the gun instead of looking to any member of his team. Before any of them could register that he was moving, he lifted the gun again, this time training it on Ianto. “I should just shoot-“

“Jack!” A quartet of voices rang out in alarm and Gwen stepped up between the revolver’s muzzle and the young Welshman. After a few tense seconds Jack lowered the gun and clicked the safety back in place. The team visibly relaxed, letting out breaths they’d been holding with deep, whooshing sighs. Myfanwy made a short squawk, not to be left out. Jack, however, remained tense and tightly coiled and when Ianto stepped toward him, a conciliatory hand reaching for his shoulder, Jack slapped the hand away. 

“Jack?”

“This isn’t over,” was all Jack said before turning his back to the other four and locking himself in his office.

Two hours later, the coffee machine exploded. And the only person in the office – and that was a loose interpretation of the word “person” - who could say they were truly surprised was the pterodactyl. 

 

By Tuesday evening, things were getting desperate. Ianto had steadfastly refused to go on caffeine runs to the local coffee shop, saying it was hardly his fault the supply had been cut off in the first place. Jack, still (in his mind, justifiably) angry, refused to sign off on the order of a new machine, muttering something about “the principle of the thing.” Meanwhile, Tosh, Gwen, and Owen survived on self-procured takeaway - and, when desperation hit, the dreaded instant - and took bets as to who would break first: the Moody Captain or the Coffee King.

War hadn’t been halted just because the supply lines were cut, either. Ianto came in that morning to find all the brochures in the tourist office staple gunned to the ceiling. After being called out to investigate something wriggly, green, and glowing that had taken up residence in someone’s swimming pool, Jack returned to find all the coffee mugs super glued to his desk. Except his, of course, which was well-secured to his chair. The post-it stuck to the top (which was really the bottom, given its topsy-turvy nature) left simple instructions for what Jack should do with said mug.

“Up yours,” the message read in Ianto’s quick scrawl. Jack winced. 

While Jack worked his way through the variety of solvents, both terrestrial and alien, that Torchwood stocked and Ianto painstakingly removed each brochure and staple, the rest of the team converged on the boardroom. 

“It’s got to stop,” Gwen said as she passed out cups of coffee from the shop around the corner. It was their third order of the day and the owner asked if he shouldn’t just set them up with an hourly delivery. Bad as things were, Gwen had actually considered the offer.

“Thank you, Queen of the Bloody Obvious. That’s why we’re here.” Owen reached for a packet of creamer from the cup carrier, frowning. “Hazelnut again? Don’t they have anything besides sodding Hazelnut?”

“Quit whining. I got you a French Vanilla, you big baby.” Gwen dug two of the mini-tubs of creamer from her pocket and threw them at him. 

“Right, so if you two are finished…” Tosh pulled the notebook computer from her lap, checking that the coast was clear before opening the machine and nudging the screen to life with a few taps of the touchpad. “I’ve run a few scenarios and – “

“Let me spare us from the boredom, shall I?” Owen leaned back in his chair, stirring the creamer into his coffee with a pen pulled from behind his ear. “Electro-shock.”

Gwen tossed a balled up napkin at Owen across the table. “How is that going to help?”

“Works on barking dogs, doesn’t it? Little zap from the collar often enough, Scruffy behaves and the neighbors get some peace and quiet.”

“I see two very big flaws in your plan,” Tosh said, her attention split between her coffee and the screen of her laptop.

“Oh yeah? Such as?”

“Such as Jack and Ianto aren’t dogs, meaning they’ve got opposable thumbs and the ability to take the collars off, for starters.”

“Minor detail. With the equipment we’ve got around here and your brilliant mind I’m sure you could come up with something foolproof, Tosh.”

“Make that three flaws, then. Because no amount of flattery is going to make me risk the big one.”

“Which is?”

“Jack will kill us and we don’t bounce back as nicely as he does?”

“Right. Okay, new plan.”

Gwen, who had been quiet up to that point, sat forward. “Why don’t we just try talking to them? Sit them down, explain to them how their behavior is affecting the rest of us and ask them to stop.”

Owen stared at Gwen for a good ten seconds, coffee cup poised for a drink and frozen by, it seemed, shock. “God, you really would be better off as a children’s TV presenter.”

“Fuck you, Owen.”

“Guys…”

“No, sorry, been there and done that already and wasn’t too impressed the first time around.”

“Guys.”

“It’s no wonder you had to resort to alien pheromone spray to pick up women! I must’ve been out of my bleeding mind to sleep with you!”

“GUYS!” Tosh slammed both her hands against the tabletop and stood, staring daggers at each of her companions. Owen balked under the full weight of the Sato Wrath and sunk back into his chair. Gwen flinched and followed suit. 

Once they had settled, Tosh smoothed out her shirt and cleared her throat. “As I was saying, I’ve run a few scenarios and this one seems to have the highest probability of success.” As she spoke, Tosh turned her laptop so Gwen and Owen could watch the simulation Tosh had put together flash across the screen. Both of them leaned forward, rapt attention focused on the monitor. Neither spoke. Or moved. 

When it ended Tosh spun the computer back round again and took her seat once more. 

“Well?”

“Tosh,” Owen said, something akin to awe and admiration in his normally sarcastic expression, “you’re an evil genius, girl.”

 

Jack looked up from his desk at the soft rap at his door. Gwen leaned against the frame, a steaming Styrofoam cup in hand and wearing a sympathetic smile. 

“Got the mugs up, I see,” she said.

“Chair’s a lost cause. What the glue didn’t ruin the solvent disintegrated.” Jack shrugged, jerking his chin at the cup Gwen carried. “That for me or were you just planning on teasing me with it?”

“What, this?” Gwen pointed at the cup and followed it up with a soft tap of her index finger against her chin. “Oh, I suppose I could let you have it. Though it is your own fault we’re living on takeout and instant.”

“If you’ve come in to complain…”

“I came in to bring you this.” Gwen set the cup on the desk and left it dead center of a ring left behind on the wood by one of the removed mugs. “Figured you’d be deep in the thralls of withdrawal by now and could use it.”

Jack muttered a “Thanks” as he reached for the mug, groaning as the first taste slid across his tongue. It wasn’t Ianto’s, not by any stretch of the imagination, but after two days without, any coffee would do. Gwen leaned her hip against the desk, rifling through the papers within reach. A slick brochure was tucked behind the incident reports and archive files. She pulled it out, holding it up so Jack could see it and the questioning tilt of her head. 

“Bed and breakfast? Always saw you as more the seedy motel type.”

“Nowhere without room service.” Jack winked. “Was going to take Ianto there last weekend. You know how that went: Weevils and uninvited wedding guests.” Jack reached for the pamphlet. His attempt was sluggish and clumsy. His fingers overshot by inches and knocked over one of the mugs he freed from his desktop earlier.

“All right then, Jack?” Gwen grabbed the mug before it could roll off the desk and set it gently on the opposite corner. 

“Feel…strange.” His other hand went suddenly weak, fingers loosening around the cup Gwen brought him. It landed on the desk with a wobbly thud, dislodging the lid and sloshing coffee over the stack of papers Jack had been engrossed in. The room seemed to spin when he turned his head to regard the cup. “What did you do?”

Gwen tsked, wagging a finger in front of Jack’s nose. “Now Jack, that’s not very trusting, is it? No way to treat a co-worker. Might want to put your head down, though. Otherwise it’s going to-“

On cue, Jack’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward. His forehead hit the desk and Gwen flinched.

“Oh well,” she said, straightening. “Not as if he felt it anyway.” Then Gwen pressed the button on her earpiece. “Tosh? Owen? How’s Ianto?”

“Dead heavy,” Owen grunted across the line. 

“Unconscious,” Tosh offered. “Put up a bit of a fight about it, though. Told you Owen should’ve waited to come in until after he was out. He got suspicious right off the bat. Not sure how much of the sedative he actually drank. How about Jack?”

“Out like a light. Was almost too easy.”

“Good pair of tits makes anything easy.” Owen still grunted, but Gwen could hear the grinding of the elevator’s motor in the background. They’d have him topside soon enough.

“That’s why it was such a snap to talk you into doing the heavy lifting then, I suppose.” Gwen grabbed Jack by a handful of hair and lifted his cheek off the table. Yep. Dead to the world, figuratively speaking. She dropped his head back to the desktop with a thump and smiled. “All right, hurry up with Ianto then come help me get Jack sorted. We’ve got another twenty minutes before they should start waking up and I’ve got a feeling we won’t want to be there when they do.”

 

Jack noticed two things as consciousness returned. One was the dull throb in his forehead. The other was the rough scrape of gravel under his cheek.

Well, and the fact he was apparently naked, which took two seconds longer than the rest to filter through, aided on by the realization that he also felt gravel on his chest, abdomen, thighs, and, uncomfortably enough, his cock. 

All right, make that three things.

The next thing Jack noticed as he pushed himself groggily to his knees was that it wasn’t so much gravel as coarse concrete, the stuff used outdoors instead of the smoother, slicker variety that would’ve indicated the Hub floor. He confirmed that assumption with a look around him. Other than the three-foot brick and mortar wall on all sides and the roof access stairwell door directly behind him, all he could see was black sky, faint stars, and the ambient light and rooftops of downtown Cardiff. 

“Drugged me and left me, naked, on a rooftop. Gee I love my team,” Jack muttered as he waited for the last of the fuzziness to recede enough so he could stand. 

“And they love you too, obviously,” an annoyed voice full of lovely, familiar Welsh vowels said from behind him. Jack turned to find Ianto – a Ianto he’d missed in his quick assessment of his surroundings only because of the convenient pool of shadow the young Welshman had found to hide in – sitting with his back propped against the brick of the stairwell entrance. Shadows or not, there was enough light that he could tell two very important things about Ianto Jones: he was pissed and he was just as starkers as Jack was.

The second thing posed several interesting possibilities for passing the time, Jack thought. The first more or less canceled them out.

Jack strode to the stairwell door once he was on his feet and steady. Ianto shook his head.

“Don’t waste your time. S’locked solid. Already tried it.” He extended his hand instead, offering a folded sheet of paper to Jack. 

“What’s this?”

“Grounds for Retconning or bullet to the braining or both, in my book.” 

Jack took the note, holding it close to his face to read it in the dim light. Two different sets of handwriting covered the page, Tosh’s neat script dominating the note but broken up by hastily scribbled notes in Owen’s nearly illegible scrawl left in parentheses in the margins. 

Jack and Ianto-

This is for your own good. Kiss and make up or else.

(Don’t mean that necessarily literally, perverts)

The lock is on a timer. It will open at 6 o’clock tomorrow morning. Your clothes are on the other side of the door and you can have them back then. 

(Maybe)

Jack, no cheating. We don’t care whether you’d bounce back or not, if you throw yourself off this roof to get out of this we really WILL feed your coat to Myfanwy. 

(With you in it!)

Like we said, this is for your own good and our sanity. If you two don’t work this out now, you can try to keep Torchwood Three above water on your own. We’ll Retcon ourselves if we have to.

Grow up!

-Gwen, Tosh, and Owen

P.S. Jack - Sorry about your head!

Jack sank down the door, bouncing the back of his head off the reinforced wood with a sigh as he reached the floor. Balling up the note he tossed it across the roof and watched it skitter and bounce into the shadows, forgotten.

“This wasn’t how I planned it,” he said, staring out at the halo of filtered light that hung around the city. “Not this, I’m as much a victim here as you are, but…” He shook his head. “It was just supposed to be a little fun and somewhere along the way, it got out of hand.”

“I can’t believe you thought I’d actually let Myfanwy have your coat.”

“I know.”

“I love that coat.”

Jack grinned, a slow and wicked smile that brightened his eyes as much as it lifted the corners of his lips. “And I have the CCTV footage to prove it.”

Ianto’s hand swung out, impacting Jack’s arm, just barely hard enough to sting but with enough force to be felt. “Bastard.”

“One of my few redeeming qualities.” Jack caught Ianto’s hand before he could retract it, fingers wrapped in a tight but tenuous hold around the other man’s wrist. The pulse under Jack’s fingertips jumped. “Look, Ianto. I’m sorry about the coffee machine.”

“As you should be,” Ianto said, finally turning to look at Jack. There was a faint but noticeable flicker of amusement in his softening blue eyes. “The replacement should arrive next Tuesday.”

“I sent that request back unsigned.”

“And I forged your signature and sent it in anyway. I mean really, Jack, did you expect I wouldn’t?”

“Point taken.”

“Good.”

Silence stretched on for a few minutes after that, conversation replaced with the sound of the wind and the late night traffic below. Ianto broke it first, pulling his hand back but only far enough away to adjust the angle and slip his fingers between Jack’s. 

“I’m sorry about the out of control joy buzzer,” he said in a voice that managed to sound amused and guilty all at once. 

“There are a lot more pleasant ways for you to curl my toes, I admit.” As if to prove the point, Jack’s free hand shot out to curl against the back of Ianto’s neck and pull him across the short span of concrete. They met in a frantic clash of lips and teeth and greedy hands. As Jack re--staked his claim on Ianto’s mouth Ianto slid his hand between their bodies, grinning into the kiss when his fingers wrapped around Jack’s half-hard cock. In the second between intent and success it dawned on them both that there had been a week and a half since they’d touched. Ten days since the last kiss, the last slide of skin, the last flick of a tongue or twist of a wrist that had left either of them moaning and desperate and spent. Everything else, in that moment, ceased to matter. 

Except for a change in the wind that sent a shiver over Ianto’s skin. Jack pried his lips away and rested his forehead against Ianto’s as he panted to catch his breath – something made significantly more difficult by the fingers still wrapped around him, stroking and squeezing and trying to pull him inside out.

“Don’t think they figured hypothermia into their plan,” he grunted.

“They left a sleeping bag. S’over there.” Ianto jerked his head to the left and a lump of something concealed in the dark. “Either figured we’d kiss and make up as instructed or one of us wouldn’t leave the roof alive.”

“I’m pretty sure the first was a definite from the moment I opened my eyes and found myself trapped with a hot, naked Welshman.” Jack, reluctantly, guided Ianto’s hand away and stood, pulling his lover with him. It took longer than he liked to get the bedroll down; it was old and the zipper stuck twice trying to get it open. But once he had it unzipped Jack nodded for Ianto to get comfortable before settling on top of him and pulling the rest of the blanket over them both.

“And now back to the kissing and making up, then?” Ianto grinned evilly and tried to wiggle his hand back between their bodies once more. Jack grabbed Ianto’s wrist instead, pinning the wayward hand over the other man’s head. 

“And now,” Jack purred, a grin that flashed warning and delight in equal parts situated firmly on his face, as he ducked beneath the blanket, “you just lie back, close your eyes, and think of navy blue wool.”

“Bastard,” Ianto muttered, a laugh just on the other side of his teeth. But it was brought up short by a shocked gasp and a growling moan when Jack’s lips sealed around the head of his cock and slid slowly, agonizingly down. 

The continuation of the kissing portion of the instructions would have to wait.

 

Tosh, Owen, and Gwen had all met at the shop around the corner the next morning, none of them much relishing the thought of facing the wrath of Jack or Ianto alone. As the cog door rolled open the three peered into the Hub, looking for signs of ambush or other forms of impending death, but found none. In fact, the Hub was completely, eerily quiet, save for the reptilian snorts and snores of Myfanwy, still asleep in her aerie overhead. 

“Jack?” Tosh called out, crossing the bridge over the fountain’s pool. “Ianto? Anyone here?”

“Maybe they killed each other last night after all,” Owen said from a safe distance of five steps behind Tosh. 

“Doubtful. Leave those two a sleeping bag and a tube of lube and the last thing they’re going to be thinking about is violence.” Gwen stepped behind Owen, fairly certain that if landmines had been left in wait Owen and his clomping steps would find them first.

“There’s nobody here,” Tosh eventually announced after a preemptive lap around the main floor. “Maybe they overslept? Or the lock timer forgot to flip?”

“Or they came and left and set this out for us to find.” Gwen stood in front of her desk, pointing at a large envelope taped to her monitor. 

“Well open it then.”

“You open it.”

“No, you open it!”

“I’ll open it!” Tosh yelled as she ripped the note from the monitor and tore open the flap, all while fixing her co-workers with an exasperated glare. They all three breathed a sigh of relief when they found a DVD within instead of the ticking bomb they half expected.

It only took a second to boot up the disk. Gwen’s screen was then filled with a shot of Jack’s desk chair, empty at first but soon occupied by its owner. 

“Hey there, kids!” Jack grinned at them from the screen, none the worse for wear except for the bump still present on his forehead. “I know you’re all wondering where I am this morning and where Ianto is – hey, get over here.” The on-screen Jack lurched and reached for something just beyond the camera’s field of vision. He came back with arms – and then a lap – full of Ianto. “See? Both survived. Hatchet’s firmly buried, figuratively. We reached an accord last night – “

“Oh, is that what you’re calling it now? Very loud accord it was, too.” Ianto smirked.

Jack rolled his eyes and Ianto continued to look smug. “Anyway, our pranking days are over. We’ve decided to use our twisted, ingenious minds for good instead of evil.”

“Less chance of the world exploding that way.”

“And I don’t think they would’ve lasted too much longer on Taster’s Choice.”

“As if you could either.”

“Hey. Immortal.”

“Immortal pain in my arse.”

“Didn’t hear you complaining about what I was doing to your arse last night.”

“That’s it,” Owen said, reaching for the mouse to turn the recording off. “I’m scarred for life enough without the play-by-play.”

“Before you pull the plug, Owen,” recorded-Jack said, causing the doctor’s hand to freeze mid-click, “there’s just one more thing.” Jack reached for something – the camera, by the way it zoomed in suddenly, until his face filled the frame. There was something very worrying in the intensity of his stare, something contradicted by his unending smile. “We understood why you did what you did. Should probably thank you for it. But there’s something each of you needs to remember.” The smile finally slipped. “Payback’s a bitch.”

The zoom returned to normal, Ianto still settled a bit too casually in Jack’s lap. “See you all Thursday morning,” he said. His lovely Welsh vowels sounded nothing but ominous.

When the screen went dark the Hub turned quiet as a tomb again. Owen, Tosh, and Gwen stared at each other in total silence, like they were waiting for Jack or Ianto to pop up from the archives or the morgue with a “Ha! Had you going, didn’t we?” But there was nothing. 

Owen finally had enough.

“Well,” he said, shoving his hands as deep as they could go into his pockets. “We’re pretty much fucked, I’d say.”

Gwen reached around Tosh and smacked Owen square against the back of the head. “Gee, you think?!”


End file.
